A Happy Ending

A Happy Ending

“So what now?” asks Eleanor much later.

“I don’t know” said Greg. “I really don’t know”.

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Who wants a happy ending? Is one person’s happy ending the same as what other people would want? Are people prepared to compromise without having to compromise being themselves? If one person compromises, will that really ensure a happy ending?

Greg wants one thing, his wife another. Sophia isn’t sure what she wants but it certainly seems to be different from what her two lovers want. Have they all got the wrong ending in order to ensure that they live contented and fulfilled lives? Can they really live in a vacuum that is so far removed from the so-called normalities of societal existence and the expectations of relationships?

In such situations, something has to give. In this situation, they all want something slightly different. So do they all have to compromise? That would possibly be the fair thing to do but in doing so, would any one of them be content?

There are hundreds of options for our characters now. They could live quite happily together in this ménage a trios if each of them realised a few home truths; that even though one of them loves one  other more than they love the other one, they could simply be honest and acknowledge this and work together in perpetual openness to ensure that they do not hurt one another. They could have a total honesty so that when one of them felt that they were seized and strangled by destructive emotions, they could explain their problem without fear of alienation, resentment or misunderstanding. In fact, they could be acknowledging that each of their shadows is there, that the shadows are not wrong, that every dark side in every human being has some validity, however irrational it may appear to the other people involved. Respecting light and dark and showing a little bit of empathy is somewhat vital in such situations.

They could choose also to keep everything secret. Greg could state that he does not want to have sex with Sophia any longer but secretly maintain their relationship. Eleanor could do the very same. But secrets have a nasty habit of being discovered, as many of us know to our cost. And whilst little lies are often made for the alleged benefit of protecting a loved one, it is no real love to do this. No relationship can be enduring once even an ounce of dishonesty is introduced.

They could choose to fluctuate, understanding that even though they all feel resolute in their current passion, they accept that this might not always be the case; that Greg loves Eleanor more than he loves Sophia might be true now but it might not always be the case, although his love for Eleanor will never fade completely.

Or they could choose total separation; each of them realising that this is an impossible situation and there is no alternative other than to walk away for the sake of all their sanity.

But which one will they choose? Will they be able to work this out together in honesty? Have they really been honest with themselves as well as one another, trying to identify precisely what it is that they want?

Here are some possible ‘happy’ endings. Oh how I have come to hate that word as much as others hate the word ‘love’. What exactly does it mean to be happy? Isn’t this as trite as defining the word love. Happy is a high and we cannot all live on a constant high however much we think that this is the pinnacle of existence.

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Greg’s Solution

Eleanor looked across at him.

“What do you mean, you don’t know?” she asked somewhat tentatively.

“That was wonderful!” he said, “truly wonderful. Here I am with the two most beautiful women I have ever met in my life, loving them both, desiring them both, and still that is not enough”.

“But why is it not enough?” asked Eleanor, looking towards her beautiful lover who was clearly dropping into despondency at the rejection she felt was imminent.

“I don’t know” said Greg. “I just cannot explain it. Everything rational in my mind suggests that I should be the most content man in existence and yet, I feel bereft”.

Greg continued to explain as best he could as to how he was feeling, and what he was thinking.

“Do you both want honesty? This is all I can give, whilst recognising that this is the honesty of this moment and this moment alone. I have just made love to the two most precious people in my life.
I adore Sophia’s sexuality. I love her rawness and instinctual passion for life. I love her passion for me for I am an egotistical being. I love the newness of this relationship. I love the feeling of composure that I get when I am with her without any other complications in life. And yet, I love Eleanor more. Eleanor is my constant companion; the person that I have chosen to spend my life with, and I still want to do that, I still feel an intense connection with her that no amount of passionate and fulfilled sex can provide. Is that daft? Is that stupid? It is not that I cannot have sex with her, it is just that I haven’t had it like that and yet, even without this, I want her more”

Greg explained that he felt excruciating jealousy at the thought of his wife being intimate with another person, and was appalled that he felt even worse about this because she had chosen to have sex with another woman. It was as though he didn’t know her. Today had been the first time that she had performed fellatio on him and yet within weeks of meeting this woman she was perfectly happy and prepared to muscle her tongue into her cunt, onto her clitoris as though she was born to do just that. He couldn’t get his head round the idea that this woman who he thought he knew was a completely different sexual human being.

But he could overcome this. What he felt he was not going to be able to overcome was his wife’s increasing intimacy of a different nature with this woman. He was jumbled up inside with irrationality and fear. The fact that he could totally understand why this other woman was so absorbing merely added to the intrigue of why he could not accept things as they were.

“So what do you want?” said Sophia, fearing the worst. “What do you really want? Can you possibly answer this right now? Maybe you ought to stop yourself from making any further proclamations until we have spent a few weeks together thinking this through and living with new feelings that might ensue?”

“You are right, as ever my love” responded Greg. “We need some breathing space. We need to see how we feel in a couple of weeks or months. In the meantime, I suggest that we all live together in this unusual threesome of ours and see what happens, see how we feel, and hopefully we won’t come to blows too often when the trio of green-eyed monsters are all battling hopelessly with one another”.

So Greg suggested that they all live as they were, obviously with the change being that he now knew about the sexual intimacy between his wife and his lover. He would continue to spend some days making love with Sophia, as would Eleanor. Perhaps they could agree to have a night or two each with this woman whilst also embracing this new sexuality of Eleanor’s into their relationship.

And if they felt comfortable with it, perhaps they could all spend one night a week together, fucking the essence in and out of one another.

The women agreed with this as an interim possibility so they kissed one another, made their breakfast and prepared themselves for this new way of life.

But Greg was going to have to do some compromising. He was going to have to control his anger and frustration when his wife chose to spend time with Sophia rather than him, and he really was not convinced that he could do this for much longer than a few months, and if this meant that he too had to give Sophia up, then he would have to do that, but.......... he didn’t want to.

What was he going to do? What was the most important thing for him? Could he really do this?

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Eleaonor’s Solution

Eleanor looked across at him.

“What do you mean, you don’t know?” she asked somewhat tentatively.

“That was wonderful!” he said, “truly wonderful. Here I am with the two most beautiful women I have ever met in my life, loving them both, desiring them both, and still that is not enough”.

She looked towards the open window and followed her eyes towards the freedom of the city. Paris was full of life. Paris represented her new life; a liberty that she could never have known and certainly could not have expressed in her home town of Chicago.

She loved a woman. How brilliant was that! She loved a woman who had opened up a barren part of her being. She wandered into Sophia’s bedroom, leaving her adorable ones alone in silence on the sofa. She walked towards the mirror and stared at her face, hoping that her image would tell her what to do.

She carefully unwrapped the silk gown, slipping the belt down to reveal the central part of her body. She released the cover and flopped it gently to the ground. Her arms by her side, she had a good look at her naked body for the first time in her life. Lifting her arm, she caressed her face, stroked her neck and followed her fingers as they cupped her empty breasts. She moved her hand over her nipples, flat palms going over and over this unknown part of her body. She slid her other arm around her waist and felt the curvature of her newly awoken body. Her natural inclination drew her towards the triangular perfection of her pubic hair and she reached down to feel the protruding button of her newly discovered clitoris.

This is who she was, a sexual woman, found for the first time, not by the man who she thought would be the only person to ever touch her this way, but by a woman; a woman of such profound understanding of life that she has seen the complete potential of this hidden womanhood within her. And here she was, not only loving a woman but also loving herself and her sexuality.

She looked on as she reached inside herself and felt the reminders of love-making within her body; his spunk, her expert fingers still tickling her imagination.

He was right. It wasn’t enough. What were they going to do?

Eleanor returned to the sitting room where Greg and Sophia were still sitting in absolute silence.

“I love you both”, she said. “I love you both. But I have just discovered that I love me too!”

They both looked up as she continued to explain where she was.

“ Sophia has awoken me. Greg brought me here to be awakened but I don’t think he had any idea that this is how it would happen. There must have been something wrong with me, with us that I felt so inhibited in showing myself to you, Greg. Why was it that I could make love to Sophia with complete abandon yet have to darken myself from you?
I love being touched by a woman and right now if I was forced to choose, there would be an easy response from me. I would choose Sophia - but of course, there would be such futility in that because Sophia doesn’t want me, she wants you” she added without malice.

“So you are right Greg. I have no idea where we go from here. Perhaps we ought to be sensible and not make a decision immediately. Perhaps we ought to see what happens naturally and not make any rash moves that we could all regret in a couple of months time”.

Sophia looked at Greg who was thinking, possibly along similar lines. Perhaps they ought to try something different.

“So what are you suggesting then Ellie?” he asked.

“I want to be with Sophia but I do not want to hurt you. What I would like to do is spend most of my time, my nights with Sophia. You can make love to her all day every day as long as I could spend the majority of my nights with her. This is what I want. Whether I can have it is dependent upon the pair of you, but I am being honest in what I want, however hard that may be.”

Greg looked at his wife. He supposed that he had been responsible for this. He was the one who had first moved out of the fidelity of their marriage. He could not deny that. He had caused the changes that were upon them to some extent now. Eleanor looked at him and knew that this was the case.

“And this is your long term desire?” said Greg.

“What is a long term desire Greg?” said his wife. “Right now, what is the point in desiring anything other than what we see and feel immediately? I have no idea what I want for the future. I have no idea, and yes, I am a little frightened by that. You seem to know what you want yet cannot necessarily give up the life that you have chosen in order to have the life that you think you want. I know that I want both of you permanently in my life but I really do not have any idea how this is going to happen.”

“You have my immediate solution, and it is up to you both to decide whether than is feasible”.

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Sophia’s Solution

Eleanor looked across at him.

“What do you mean, you don’t know?” she asked somewhat tentatively.

“That was wonderful!” he said, “truly wonderful. Here I am with the two most beautiful women I have ever met in my life, loving them both, desiring them both, and still that is not enough”.

And ever the polyamorous one, if she was honest, neither of these two was enough for her. However much she loved Greg, and she really genuinely adored him, she was who she was, and she could not possibly give up her other lover’s even if he asked her to do so.

But then again, could she? Was the love of this man, was the intimacy with this man that she felt so absolutely convinced about enough of a stimulus in her life to give up her polyamorous ways? Possibly. The greatest love etcetera? Giving to receive? It may not be that bad, especially if there was a third way, especially if he would allow her to love Eleanor from time to time too. But of course, none of this was possible because he, her adorable man loved another more than he loved her.

It was hopeless and it looked as there was no possible outcome to their situation.

What could she do?

“I’ve made a decision” she suddenly announced. “I love Greg in a way that I have not experienced before. I love him with a passion that hurts far more than the ephemeral instance of being ‘in love’. That ‘in love’ is a sickness, awash with all sorts of emotions that cannot be controlled. It is a passing phase. It is a dependency and a sham. But this is not how I feel about Greg. My love for him is far deeper; it is enduring and it is unconditional. That is a choice that I have made through prolonged thinking on the matter. It is totally different from being in love and therefore is potentially more damaging to me. I know he loves you Eleanor, but he does love me too. However, I cannot love him and you cannot love me in the same way that you love one another.

Honestly Eleanor, you are a little in love with me rather than loving me the way Greg loves you. And actually, if I am honest perhaps I am more in love with Greg than this complete intimacy that I talk of. So as far as I am concerned, there is only one alternative here.

You two need to be together. I am not going to desert either of you but I am going to release you to develop the sort of relationship that you should always have had; a complete being sexually, spirituall, emotionally, full of wonderment at one another whilst discovering your true selves within and without one another. This is the greatest love I can give.”

They both looked at her with horror and bewilderment.

“What on earth are you saying?” they said simultaneously.

“I’m saying that I have my own life and that you have yours. I can be part of it and I am looking forward to some times in the very near future where we can all enjoy one another in friendship and in sex in the future, but you two need to discover your rediscovered selves together, and therefore I need to take a step back to enable you to do that. If you both discover that you are not as compatible as you once thought, then we can reassess the situation, but for now, your relationship is the most important. You have both changed enormously since being in Paris and you need to decide what you want”.

“So no more cunnilingus?” said Eleanor in horror as well as a mock.

“No, and no more fellatio either, not for now – just a friendship that I know will endure. You are the most important people in my life and I now need to leave you be for a while”

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But these are only three outcomes. There are many more, and what did happen next as they worked things out? Did they follow Greg’s idea or Eleanor’s? Could they really let Sophia do this?

What would you do?
What would you really want if you found yourself in such a situation?

I’ve given up on thinking as no amount of thought provides any sort of solution.

TO BE CONTINUED